Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Oh hockey, how I love you. The most unlikely Stanley Cup champion in quite some time, the Los Angeles Kings had so much going against them that it’s a wonder they got as far as they did in the playoffs, let alone be the team to hoist the Cup. They barely got in the playoffs to begin with, and then they did the impossible: they went on a 16-4 tare, knocking out the three best teams in the Western Conference (and the NHL as a whole) before taking out the New Jersey Devils in 6 games. Yes folks, it’s unbelievable. What makes it unbelievable you ask? Well, let’s look at what they overcame to take it all the way:

The Kings stumbled out of the gate in the beginning of the season, leading them to fire their coach (and Flyers alumnus) Terry Murray, replacing him with Daryl Sutter midway through the year. They continued to stumble, barely squeaking into the post-season and struggling under Sutter’s defense-first system. But Jesus Christ almighty, they did it. Sutter, who was last seen in the NHL as the GM that mismanaged the Calgary Flames into oblivion, did the impossible.

In the off-season, they acquired Mike Richards, and at the trade deadline, acquired his drinking buddy/wingman Jeff Carter; both of whom had been exiled from the Flyers for their hard-partying ways. They also signed former Flyer Simon Gagne, who is a shell of his former self after numerous injuries. Not to mention the fact that they had Dustin Penner: a player that had been persecuted for his lack of game-shape-ness and the fact he hurt himself eating pancakes (I’m dead serious). Yet somehow, they came together to win it all.

For everything the Kings had going against them, they managed to win their first championship in their 45 year history. Something they couldn’t do when they had Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, Rob Blake, or Jarri Kurri. They did it with a coach and players that were seen as massive underachievers. They grinded it out against a tough Devils team, and rode the back of lights-out goaltender (and former Reading Royals product) Jonathan Quick. They were the lowest-seeded team in the NHL playoffs, and they managed to pull it all off with dominance. This folks is why I love hockey and why I love the NHL: anything can happen, even the impossible.

Okay, now with all that out of the way, here’s a list of Flyers alumni that were part of this Kings team that won it all: Richards, Carter, Gagne, Justin Williams, assistant coach John Stevens, GM Dean Lombardi, and assistant GM (and Flyers goaltender great) Ron Hextall. Yeah, these guys were called Flyers West for a reason.

Also, let’s start taking the over/under now for Richards and/or Carter dying from alcohol poisoning within the next couple days.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Hard to believe it’s been just about a year now since DC Comics rebooted their entire universe (for the most part) as part of The New 52 initiative. To celebrate the fact that they’ve stuck with it for a year, we’re seeing more titles and old characters getting rebooted slowly but surely, case in point, the Green Lantern known as Alan Scott…who is being reinterpreted as being a homosexual. Now before I go any further, let’s lay down some history, because if you’re like the public at large, you have no idea who the fuck Alan Scott is, so strap yourselves in folks, here we go:

Created during the “Golden Age” of comics in 1940, Alan Scott was the first character to bear the name “Green Lantern”, before the title would be rebooted 2 decades later as an intergalactic police force starring a guy named Hal Jordan. He lived on Earth 2 as an original member of the Justice Society (alongside the original Flash Jay Garrick, Hawkman, Wildcat, and others) before all the parallel earths got combined together in 1985’s landmark “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, where Scott remained unchanged, and the only person calling himself Green Lantern that wasn’t a member of the same Corps as Hal and the rest of the crew. Alan also had a green-skinned daughter named Jade, and a shadow-powered son named Obsidian, who himself was gay.

With the reboot the DC Universe has gone through, Alan Scott’s plate has been wiped clean. Jade and Obsidian, like other famous DC characters like Donna Troy and Wally “The Flash” West, just no longer exist. Writer James Robinson has decided to reboot Scott as being a homosexual, and for some reason people are having a shit-fit about it. I don’t understand why, because it seems the same people having a majority of the hissyfits about Scott being a gay superhero had no idea who Alan Scott was beforehand. What’s funny is that around the same time DC announced what they were doing with Scott (which had long been rumored that DC was taking an iconic character and rebooting him as being gay), Marvel was having gay X-Men member Northstar get married to his long time lover. Seems like it was a rough month of two for die-hard conservative comic book readers eh?

Anyway, as a long time DC Comics reader myself, I will admit that I was genuinely surprised seeing Alan Scott getting rebooted as a homosexual. As someone who had been written as such a driven and beloved father figure to his teammates, seeing him get rebooted as a suave, debonair, homosexual is going to make for interesting reading. Does it bother me that he’s now gay in this new DC Universe? No, not really, because he’s a fictional fucking character, that’s why. Now seriously, get the hell over it.

See y’all in the funnybooks.

Oh, and for the record, my money was on Shazam being the character to get rebooted as being gay. I lost.